Code 17: Code 17, #1

By Francis Booth

Praise for Code 17

 

'A wild and witty thriller'

Set in London in the swinging sixties with a brief whizz over to New York and back, this is a thrilling, action-packed page-turner. Lady Laura (not her long name) is a glamorous international art dealer who can handle a gun, a sword and, in fact, any kind of weapon. She cons and is conned, shoots and is shot at as she fearlessly seeks the one who is targeting her. Ruthlessly, she pursues her enemy, wiping out anyone who gets in her way with a nod to Twiggy, Warhol and all the other icons of the time who hover in the background of her life among the rich and famous. There are many twists and turns as the reader gasps breathless unable to put the book down. At times you laugh out loud shouting yes, yes, yes as, once more Lady Laura extricates herself from a seemingly impossible situation. She's unputdownable - like the book.

 

'Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying'

Now here's a novel that churns with contradictions. Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying, Code 17 thrills and chills. Its deeply dislikeable characters have exquisitely addictive redeeming factors that keep us coming back for more. The plot shocks and amazes on every page. Its unexpected format and terrifying subject matter force the reader to ask questions of himself: wouldn't we behave similarly, in such situations, if only we could get away with it? Code 17 is set primarily in Swinging-Sixties London, plunders the intriguing worlds of fine art and forgery, aristocracy and auction houses, and drops names. Twiggy, John and Yoko, Warhol and the Velvet Underground are all here. The sex is zipless, the crime ruthless, and it's every man, woman and murderer for himself. Kill or be killed. Read this novel, but notez bien: it will turn your stomach even as it curdles your heart. It's the size of it.

 

'Smashing!!!'

 

I'm a child of the 60s and fondly remember all the great TV series of the time: The Man from Uncle, The Girl from Uncle (perhaps a little more fondly. . . swoon), Department S, The Persuaders and of course The Avengers. Beautiful girls running around in catsuits shooting people and karate chopping people is all okay by me. This book has it all . . . Go-Go boots, Twiggy, Venus in Furs, Jensen FFs . . . smashing!!!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wu Wei Press
• Release date: Jul 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227035943

Francis Booth

As well as Comrades in Art: Revolutionary Art in America 1926-1938 Francis Booth is the author of several books on twentieth century culture: Amongst Those Left: The British Experimental Novel 1940-1960 (published by Dalkey Archive) No Direction Home: The Uncanny In Literature Text Acts: Twentieth Century Literary Eroticism Everybody I Can Think of Ever: Meetings That Made the Avant Garde A Girl Named Vera Can Never Tell A Lie: The Fiction of Vera Caspary Girls in Bloom: Coming of Age in the Mid-20th Century Woman's Novel Francis is also the author of two novel series: The Code 17 series, set in the Swinging London of the 1960s and featuring aristocratic spy Lady Laura Summers Young adult fantasy series The Watchers

Book preview

author’s note

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Code 17 was originally a musical idea. Ten years ago I made an album that paid homage to the theme music of 1960s British TV spy series like The Man from UNCLE, The Baron and Department S, and to films like Modesty Blaise and The Ipcress File. The music on the album was from an imaginary TV series called Code 17, featuring the glamorous art dealer/spy Lady Laura Summers. She was imagined as a cross between Sharron Macready of The Champions, Emma Peel of The Avengers and Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward of Thunderbirds, though none of these women was the lead character.

Ten years later I thought I could make a novel out of Code 17 and Lady Laura, set in the Swinging London of 1967. I kept to the format of a twelve-episode TV series and tried to imagine each chapter as a fast-moving thirty minute episode, split into short scenes.

I hope you can imagine it that way too. You can stream the Code 17 album from most music sites.

Francis Booth

praise for code 17

––––––––

‘A wild and witty thriller’

Set in London in the swinging sixties with a brief whizz over to New York and back, this is a thrilling, action-packed page-turner. Lady Laura (not her long name) is a glamorous international art dealer who can handle a gun, a sword and, in fact, any kind of weapon. She cons and is conned, shoots and is shot at as she fearlessly seeks the one who is targeting her. Ruthlessly, she pursues her enemy, wiping out anyone who gets in her way with a nod to Twiggy, Warhol and all the other icons of the time who hover in the background of her life among the rich and famous. There are many twists and turns as the reader gasps breathless unable to put the book down. At times you laugh out loud shouting yes, yes, yes as, once more Lady Laura extricates herself from a seemingly impossible situation. She's unputdownable - like the book.

––––––––

‘Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying’

Now here’s a novel that churns with contradictions. Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying, Code 17 thrills and chills. Its deeply dislikeable characters have exquisitely addictive redeeming factors that keep us coming back for more. The plot shocks and amazes on every page. Its unexpected format and terrifying subject matter force the reader to ask questions of himself: wouldn’t we behave similarly, in such situations, if only we could get away with it? Code 17 is set primarily in Swinging-Sixties London, plunders the intriguing worlds of fine art and forgery, aristocracy and auction houses, and drops names. Twiggy, John and Yoko, Warhol and the Velvet Underground are all here. The sex is zipless, the crime ruthless, and it’s every man, woman and murderer for himself. Kill or be killed. Read this novel, but notez bien: it will turn your stomach even as it curdles your heart. It’s the size of it.

––––––––

‘Smashing!!!’

I’m a child of the 60s and fondly remember all the great TV series of the time: The Man from Uncle, The Girl from Uncle (perhaps a little more fondly. . . swoon), Department S, The Persuaders and of course The Avengers. Beautiful girls running around in catsuits shooting people and karate chopping people is all okay by me. This book has it all . . . Go-Go boots, Twiggy, Venus in Furs, Jensen FFs . . . smashing!!!

‘Had me gripped’

This book had me gripped. The characters transported me back to the swinging sixties. It had me reading ‘just one more chapter’ before I could put it down and I didn't want it to end! Can't wait for the sequel.

‘Vitesse .... Inspired choice .... Soundtrack please!’

Fast moving 60s thrill ... our heroine drives a Triumph Vitesse (oh so cool, well-chosen Mr Booth) ... I believe there's a soundtrack that goes with this. Great fun, brilliant touch points throughout, one almost wants to be transported back for a few days.

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episode 1 – murder at the wedding

january 1967

one

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BANG.

Jonty spins round, holding the gate, trying to stay upright. He looks across at me, startled.

BANG.

BANG.

Jonty crumples to the ground, held semi-upright by the gate, in which he is trapped. Daddy is out of the car already. So is Silversmith. Daddy points to the church tower and runs towards it. Silversmith tries to stop me getting out of the Bentley but I push the door so hard I knock him over. Sorry, Silversmith, can’t stop. I run over to Jonty as fast as I can manage in my Courrèges wedding dress and go-go boots. Freddie is just standing there, frozen. Jonty is bleeding from the head, the chest and the tummy.

The last words he says to me before he dies are ‘Code 17.’

Ten minutes earlier . . .

Late for his own wedding. More to the point, late for my own wedding. It wasn’t even my idea – it was Daddy who suggested we get married. He’s sitting in the front of the Bentley with our old family retainer Silversmith; both of them formally dressed in morning coats. I’m in the back with my bridesmaid and old school chum Muffie – we were at Roedean and Girton together. We’re now in business together, if you call what we do a business. The police would call it a criminal enterprise, though the police are far too stupid to catch us. And even if they did they’d be scared off by Daddy. He’s an Earl, he owns all the land for miles around including the village and he’s also something big in the City. Don’t ask, I don’t really understand what he does. All I know is it involves making the filthy rich even filthier rich. He seems to be rather good at it.

Although we’ve always been close, Muffie and I are almost complete opposites: I’m tall, slim, blond and – I might as well come straight out with it – startlingly beautiful. There, I’ve said it. At Roedean they said I must be half greyhound, but actually I’m more like a very elegant afghan hound or a sleek, svelte borzoi. Muffie, on the other hand, is more your ginger tabby: quiet, shy, scholarly. Wears glasses. Wouldn’t say boo. But that’s on the surface. In fact, like me, she is an international art criminal, forging paintings that I sell to the kind of snobbish, gullible, greedy idiots who let Daddy manage their money. In court I would no doubt be described as the mastermind of the operation. Which would in fact be fair: I do have the mind of a master and I have certificates to prove it.

I have a first in Art History from Cambridge – Muffie helped me cheat, though she got a 2:2 herself, she was too scared to cheat on her own exams. After Cambridge I went to the Courtauld to study with Professor Sir Anthony Blunt, a lovely man and Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures, no less. He knows more about Poussin than the rest of the world put together; he showed me how to tell the real ones from the fakes. I showed Muffie and thanks to us the world now has a couple of new Poussins, which we both think is a good thing – how can there be too many Poussins in the world? Each is accompanied by a certificate of authentication signed by the Professor himself – well, not exactly himself: I didn’t like to bother the great man himself.

Especially since Muffie is such a great forger.

two

Okay, I’m going to give him ten more minutes and if he doesn’t turn up I’m going home. There aren’t many guests waiting in the church anyway, just a few villagers. Jonty and I are – at least we were – getting married in the sweet little old church in the village that our family has owned for generations. Daddy pays the Rector’s salary, no doubt to help expiate his own sins – stealing from the rich to give to the even richer must be some kind of sin. My soon-to-be-ex-fiancé-if-he-doesn’t-turn-up-soon works for Daddy. He was what they call a FILTH – Failed In London, Try Hong Kong – but then he failed in Hong Kong too. I don’t know how stupid you would have to be to fail in Hong Kong but it must be pretty stupid. Jonty is. Daddy took pity on him when he came back from Asia with his tail between his legs and offered him a job. Daddy then suggested we should get married.

Why?

Good question.

If I tell you the answer, you’ll have to promise not to be outraged or offended.

Agreed?

Okay then.

You see, how can I put this, Jonty doesn’t really . . . go for women. If you see what I mean. And, though we’ve never discussed it, Daddy presumably knows that I don’t go for men.

What, you ask: you and Muffie?

Certainly not.

I want you to get that thought right out of your mind.

Now.

Thank you.

Muffie isn’t like me. She probably would go for men if she ever found one who had even half her brains and talent. Don’t get me wrong about Muffie: although she is mousy, ginger and freckled, she’s a lovely girl and any chap would be jolly lucky to have her. That last bit is a quote from Daddy, who loves Muffie like a second daughter.

And nothing more.

I’d like you to get that thought out of your mind also.

Muffie does love my father to pieces, but only in a daughterly way – she hasn’t got a father of her own and her mother is a promiscuous drunk so Muffie has always spent a lot of time with us up at the Manor. It’s hardly surprising that Muffie – let alone I – have never found a young man we could go for: most of the young men we know, including Jonty, are dim, upper-class, braying hyenas; the richer they are the louder and more stupid they seem to be. We call them LOMBARDs – Lots Of Money But A Real Dope.

But then Daddy suggested to me, over a glass of post-prandial port one evening – Daddy treats me like a man for the purposes of dinner etiquette – that it would be a big help to me in my international art business to have a husband. He’s right, though obviously Daddy only knows about the legitimate side of my business. Most of my clients are filthy rich, older men, many of them from ancient European aristocratic families who were brought up to believe in their absolute droigt de seigneur. They see all women as being freely available; they may even see it as their duty to bed any young woman they see – noblesse oblige and all that, ensuring their aristocratic genes flourish in fine young female flesh. The more I protest, the more they see me as a challenge – such an elegant, aloof, upper-class English blonde would be a great trophy for their collection.

As if.

Similarly for Jonty of course. He would benefit enormously from having me as his wife at client meetings and business dos. And, as Daddy pointed out, at these meetings I would meet lots of rich, stupid potential clients who, blinded by my beauty and wowed by my sales pitch, would soon be begging me to help them invest their millions in the safe haven of artistic masterpieces. So, after initially laughing at what I presumed was Daddy’s little joke, I slept on it and conceded the next morning.

I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t.

three

Jonty is always late, but I’m wondering now if he’s got cold feet. I am absolutely not the kind of girl to be abandoned at the altar. Five more minutes and I’m off. While we’re waiting, perhaps I should tell you something more about myself. I’m twenty-three. My full name is Lady Laurencia Artemisia Claudia Summers. I know. Friends call me Laura though Daddy has always insisted on the full Laurencia at all times, even when I was little. (It rhymes with ‘dementia’ not ‘adventure;’ it’s definitely not pronounced Lauren-seer. And, while we’re at it, Lady Laura Summers is the correct form of address for the daughter of an Earl. Lady Summers, or Countess Summers would be the wife of an Earl. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.)

The Laurencia I was named after is a Russian ballet; Nureyev has done it with Margot Fonteyn and the Royal Ballet many times. Daddy took Mummy to see it in Leningrad. It was their first date, in 1939, during the build-up to the war. Daddy was in Russia on some kind of emergency financial forum. Mummy had fled Italy – the fascists had executed her father for sedition – and gone to study at the Hermitage. Daddy was visiting the museum and saw Mummy sketching in front of Titian’s Portrait of a Young Woman. ‘Good Lord, she looks just like you,’ he said.

‘You know she is naked under the fur coat?’ Mummy replied. Daddy says he knew at that moment that he had to marry her. He had tickets for the Kirov that night that someone had given him. The rest is history. Mummy was already a Contessa – or at least she claimed to be; every Italian I’ve ever met claimed to be an aristocrat of some sort. Daddy on the other hand had just inherited a genuine and ancient British title and Mummy quickly agreed to become a genuine Countess. They left Leningrad on one of the last ships to leave before war was declared; they immediately got married in the same church as me – if my wedding ever happens.

Five years later I came along.

Mummy died ten days after I was born.

She never left the hospital.

I killed my mother.

Daddy says I mustn’t think like that, but I am, literally a born killer.

Mummy was an artist, an Italian artist, passionate, romantic and fiery. Hence my second name: Artemisia, after Artemisia Gentileschi who was a female Italian artist; she painted strong women like Judith and Susannah from the Bible. And my third name, Claudia – pronounced Cloudier – was my mother’s name. From the few photographs we have of her she was beautiful, elegant and impossibly glamorous; even I feel positively plain in comparison. Daddy has probably never got over her, he certainly hasn’t ever found anyone worthy to be her successor. He must have had plenty of chances to remarry – who doesn’t want to be a Countess? – but he has always devoted himself entirely to me. Although I would never admit it to him, he has been the perfect father.

He brought me up as both his son and his daughter. He took me out shooting on the estate even as a little girl; he got me my first fencing master when I was eight. I’ve kept up both hobbies and I have Blues in both shooting and fencing from Cambridge. Obviously I learned to ride early on and I am, with all due modesty, a superb horsewoman. I was also racing Daddy’s Jaguar around the estate as soon as my feet could reach the pedals and I still drive like the wind; Muffie refuses to let me drive when we’re together, she says it’s too scary. Daddy even taught me to box – with my height and reach I could easily thrash most of the unfortunate village boys he paid to come over and take me on.

The one thing Daddy really wanted for me of course was that I would become an artist, but I was always hopeless at drawing; as soon as I saw how talented Muffie was I gave up trying. Muffie can – and does – paint anything. She has no particular artistic style or ideas of her own, but that’s what makes her such a great forger. Through me Muffie probably sells more paintings than any living artist, though none of them has her signature on. Still, although I can’t paint for toffee I do have an excellent eye for a painting which, combined with my first-rate art history education, my contacts, my social skills, my title, looks and fashion sense – again, you must forgive my lack of modesty – make me the ideal art dealer. If I had to, I could make an extremely good living just selling genuine works of art, but where would be the fun in that?

four

Okay, that’s it, he’s not coming.

We’re going home.

I’m freezing sitting here in my white Courrèges minidress, made specially for me by André Courrèges himself – Twiggy introduced us backstage at a show in Paris and told André I needed a wedding dress. He took one look at me with my long, long legs, flat chest, broad shoulders and cascading blond hair and said he would be delighted to make something for me. ‘Honoré et enchanté madamoiselle – ah, pardon, honoré et enchanté milady.’ The French are tediously obsequious towards the British upper classes; it’s as if they still feel guilty for guillotining all their own aristocrats. I paid André with an early ‘Picasso’, an uncatalogued study for the Vollard Suite; Muffie said I could consider it as her wedding present to me.

Unlike the drawing, the dress is the real thing and very beautiful, but it is also very short indeed and not at all suitable for the English winter. Muffie is wearing Miss Selfridge –